The movie stars Mr. Webber, who calls himself by his own first name, and his 2-year-old son Isaac Love, who is called Isaac. Autobiographical in theme and tone, the film was inspired by Mr. Webber’s breakup with Isaac’s mother. Onscreen, the boy’s mom was killed in a car accident from which Mark has not recovered. So he juggles the roles of wannabe New York actor eager but failing to break into the Hollywood movie scene and single dad with a loving but demanding child to raise. He has so little money and time that he is forced to take the kid with him to an audition with Amanda Seyfried, who plays herself.

Trying to clothe and feed Isaac, he buys him toys with money he doesn’t have. Strung-out and desperate for sleep he never gets enough of, he battles loneliness, insecurity and the need for emotional support. Awkward attempts to meet compassionate women prove hopeless. One single mom who runs a day care center likes Isaac and seems sympathetic to Mark’s needs, but he pounces on the first date and tells her he loves her, which sends her running. An encounter with an old flame from New York crashes when she realizes he’s an unemployed loser with a baby. On the rare occasion when he is on the verge of freedom, there is always the child to consider. Added to the pressure of getting a job, paying off his debts and balancing his life with rest, relaxation and responsibilities he’s too young to shoulder alone, Mark’s car is towed and his roommates evict him for defaulting on the rent. You can’t help but empathize, yet you eventually realize Mark’s life is a freeze-frame docudrama, and so is the movie. He’s a good enough director to make you want to see what he might do with more substantial material and a better script.

Meanwhile, if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to watch a 2-year-old child steal an entire movie right out from under the grown-ups, this is your chance. Isaac is a talky, inquisitive and fearless little actor who obviously trusts his dad without reservation. Mr. Webber’s relationship with his son is a sensitive, moment-to-moment character study between man and child that is delicately nuanced and punctuated by improvised naturalism. I like the scenes that unfold in long single takes in real time. The film careens awkwardly in the direction of self-indulgent sentimentality when Mark takes Isaac to visit his mother’s grave and tries to teach him the meaning of death, but even in the awkward moments, his obsession with realism keeps the viewer in the picture. I really wanted to meet that little boy, clean up his messy home and do something to save him from living in his father’s automobile. At the same time, I wanted Mr. Webber to pick up the pace and get on with it instead of detouring to a Hollywood party for an intrusive and pointless 20 minutes of padding, and introducing us to people like Michael Cera and Jason Ritter, among other friends who drop by to help out. I don’t know why the film is called The End of Love, because no matter what obstacles Mr. Webber faces, his devotion to Isaac is never going to fade.

There are some lovely and moving things here, but over the long haul it’s more like watching an hour and a half of someone’s weekend trip to Knott’s Berry Farm.

THE END OF LOVE

Running Time 90 minutes

Written and Directed by Mark Webber

Starring Isaac Love, Mark Webber and Amanda Seyfried

rreed@observer.com

Amanda Seyfried stars as Linda Lovelace

Eccles Center in Park City, Utah—known to Sundance veterans as “The Big House”—is so massive that my first thought was that the Rolling Stones would have had a tough time selling this joint out at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday night in the middle of a frigid January.

The night in question was last Tuesday, Jan. 22. The occasion was the world premiere of a film that I wrote, Lovelace, in which Amanda Seyfried stars as 1970s porn icon-turned-women’s rights activist Linda Lovelace.

Team Lovelace flew into Park City with a bit of a tailwind. Ms. Seyfried had received raves for her performance as Cosette in Les Misérables, there were encouraging results from two focus groups, and there was a generally healthy buzz surrounding the film. But that’s how every ghost story starts, isn’t it? Haunted whispers from around the campfires of Sundance, Cannes and Toronto—an enticing cabin in the mountains, a super-sexy young woman about to take her top off and a group of friends high on camaraderie and optimism—three weeks later, everybody is telemarketing or teaching English in Thailand.

That’s the dirty little secret about the film industry (well, one of many, actually). You can test and prod and predict all you want, but the clinically detached truth is that you never have any clue if your movie is any good until you get it in front of an unbiased audience.

There are probably 100 different variables that factor into whether a project is christened a success or not, but none is more important than landing a distribution deal. For movies like Lovelace that head into festivals showroom-shined and in search of a distributor, world premieres are similar to the first 15 minutes of a kidnapping—early action points to a happy ending and early silence hints at long, deep darkness in the days ahead.

Everybody knows this harsh reality. That’s why, when I sat down and saw that every single one of the theater’s 1,300 seats was filled, I instantly regretted my decision to attend the screening sober. Like any good self-loathing writer, I spend most of my days hiding under my bed waiting for the fraud police to kick in my door. So, on high-stakes, high-wire nights like last Tuesday, I have a tendency to catastrophize. My beautiful, enchanting and endlessly understanding wife, Kate, is often dragooned into action as a human landing beacon as I drink my way past charming and take on the aspect of a distressed Cessna with its engines on fire, looking for a strip of flat earth upon which I can land my wounded pride.

But there I was, sober and scared stiff, squirming and stressing and overanalyzing every cough and giggle and whimper from the audience. Yes, there were laughs and tears, just like I intended when I wrote the script, but, I wondered as the credits began to roll, were they enough? A smattering of applause began to spread through the theater. At first it felt awkward, almost polite. But then it grew in tone and urgency into what even I had to admit sounded like authentic praise.

Moments later, I was called onstage by my great friends and collaborators, directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. On my way up to join the producers and cast for the Q&A, I caught sight of something—a brief flicker of shadow and shapes—that would take me a few seconds to process.

As I took my place onstage, I realized what I had just seen. It was Harvey Weinstein huddled with our financiers, Millennium/Nu Image, out in the hall, away from all distractions. It was as if I was living the first line of my obituary.

Mr. Weinstein isn’t just any distributor. He is an iconic, mercurial embodiment of aesthetic affirmation. He is congratulations incarnate.

Forty minutes later—before I even had a chance to reach for the champagne tray at the after-party—the news began to spread. We had, indeed, officially been acquired by Radius - The Weinstein Company. And for the rest of the night—a night filled with handshakes and back-slaps and congratulations—all I could hear was the applause coming from 1,300 people cheering in The Big House.

The new workout craze!

Did you think the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomena would just fade away now that Girls is back on? Sorry, no, your mother would rather read about Christian Grey and imagine herself as Anastasia Steele than think about the awkward sex you might be having with a bisexual right now. (Even though, hey, remember when Bret Easton Ellis floated Lena Dunham's name as a possible candidate for the heroine in his adaptation of the book, which will now never see the light of day?)

Now a new theatrical parody, Doubleday's hardcover printing of the E.L. James trilogy and casting speculation on the upcoming film, 2013 looks like it just might be another great day for vanilla BDSM sex!

First of all: SPANK!. SPANK! is a new show, premiering in Cleveland before going on international tour (which is how the pros do it, really) that has been described as a satiric send-up of Fifty Shades by its director, Jim Millan, who is apparently not afraid of trademark lawsuits.

From the Toledo Free Press:

Overall, Millan describes “SPANK!” as a fractured fairytale of the book. Others describe it as equal parts Chippendales and Second City. The director stressed that the production doesn’t take itself too seriously.

“We don’t make fun of the book,” Millan said. “It’s a parody but it’s really a celebration about being free to choose a lifestyle or dare to try something. It’s a celebration of something that’s become a pop icon. Like when the lights go down and our male character enters, there is screaming like it’s a Justin Bieber concert. I never would have expected that. When I created the opening with a very big rock god entrance for our lead male, I didn’t know that would elicit screams. But that’s what the audience brings to it, their excitement because they’ve had a lot of fun with this.”

That actually sounds terrifying. Someone needs to get the male lead a couple of bodyguards. Who preferably haven't read the book.

And just in case Etsy users haven't sucked up all the merchandising potential off the teat of this Capitoline Wolf, there's Kristen James (no relation), an exercise guru who is now offering New York classes called "50 Shapes of Grey." Here are just a few maneuvers you could be learning by skipping Pilates next week:

Finally all the speculation over the casting has got the Internet in an uproar. Current fan favorite is leaning towards Garrett Hedlund as Christian, as the author recently tweeted that she was watching Troy. And of course, all the Twilight players are still frontrunners in fans' minds, since, let's not forget, the whole Fifty Shades of Grey thing started out as Twilight fan-fic. However, a fan-made trailer on YouTube which already has over 200,000 views takes the bold stance of casting Amanda Seyfried opposite Hudland.

So tell us: How much do you care about fan art based on fan art based on Twilight?

Seyfried's amateur performance kidnapped an hour and a half of movie-goers' time.

Amanda Seyfried is not well. So much potential and Star-of-Tomorrow hype has failed to pay off. Her career looks anemic. Her screen presence has turned her pallid—and me, too. It’s hard to believe, but she walked out of her leading role as the most sensible Mormon in the hit HBO series Big Love after 45 episodes to play Meryl Streep’s gooey daughter in the nauseating Mama Mia and then fall in love with a werewolf in the idiotic Red Riding Hood. Now she gets star billing in a latent snooze called Gone, which will be exactly that before you can even find out where it’s playing. Beware of movies that are not screened in advance for the critics. The reasons are usually manifest. Now that I’ve seen Gone, I know why.

Gifted and sincere as she always is, there’s not much Ms. Seyfried can do with this tripe. She is Jill, a deeply disturbed young waitress in Portland, Ore., still struggling to get back to normal after being raped, kidnapped and thrown into an underground pit occupied by human bones of other victims buried alive. The cops, played by Daniel Sunjata, Wes Bentley and Michael Pare, don’t believe her story. So she takes self-defense classes, eschews a social life and carries a loaded .38 caliber pistol in her purse. Before she can make any progress, her sister Molly disappears, too, in the middle of the night, leaving no trace. Once again, the cops think she’s making the whole thing up. Convinced there really is a maniac on the prowl who once abducted her and goodness knows how many other victims, and now he’s back, Jill turns detective, committing a series of crimes herself in a barbed wire tangle of red herrings and false-alarm clichés borrowed from every girl-in-jeopardy thriller on The Late, Late Show.

Following clues so dangerous Jodie Foster would carry a flame thrower, she tracks down match books and hardware store receipts in stolen cars, breaks into locksmith vans and seedy hotel rooms, and introduces a coven of contrived and sinister weirdo suspects whose sole purpose is to distract the audience from the fact that Gone is another in a long line of thrillers without thrills. With more moxie than good sense, Jill turns into a sexy Nancy Drew with no respect for a good manicure. By the time she foolishly telephones the serial killer for a rendezvous in the same woods where she was once dumped, and ends up in the same hole she once crawled out of with her bare hands, all credulity has left the room. It takes a while to discover she has a history of mental breakdowns herself and did some time in the nut house. No spoilers about how it all turns out. You won’t believe that, either. As capable and appealing as Ms. Seyfried was as Bill Paxton’s daughter on Big Love, she comes off in this mess looking like a hysterical, bug-eyed amateur. Allison Burnett’s careless screenplay jumps back and forth from flashbacks in the wooded graveyard to present-tense car-crashing chases through the filthy Portland underworld after midnight without the slightest attempt at character revelation or narrative coherence, and to director Heitor Dhalia (say who?) the word nuance might as well be a French deodorant.

rreed@observer.com

GONE

Running Time 94 minutes

Written by Allison Burnett

Directed by Heitor Dhalia

Starring Amanda Seyfried, Jennifer Carpenter and Wes Bentley

1/4

Is this quiet Central Village block becoming Hollywood East? Amanda Seyfried just moved in a few doors down.

It's true, she recently bought in the Devonshire House, on the corner of Fifth Avenue, New York's oldest gold coast, which has regained some of its shine of late.

There is also Sean Parker, who bought the Bacchus House, and while he may not be a movie star, he was kinda, sorta played by one in The Social Network. Also, director Mike Nichol's son just moved out. There is also a Bush on the block.

Pretty soon, they'll start paving the sidewalk with those funny granite stars.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

Robin Hood

What's the story: Think of it as Batman Begins but with Robin Hood. Russell Crowe and director Ridley Scott team up for the fifth time (!) in the past decade for Robin Hood, a prequel of sorts to the classic tale of merry men. But lest you think this is your grandfather's Robin Hood (or even your own—Kevin Costner for life!), Messrs. Crowe and Scott eschewed the fluffier aspects of the legend in favor of a gritty realism. Which is code for "this won't have as much action and humor as you think it should." The reviews confirm as much—apparently, all the action from the trailer takes place in the final 20 minutes—and it makes you wonder: Will summer audiences want to spend two and a half hours with something so drab, especially without the promise of a theme by Bryan Adams?

Who should see it: Kevin Costner.

Letters to Juliet

What's the story: Because it's been about six weeks since Amanda Seyfried had a movie in theaters—we still remember you, Chloe—here comes Letters to Juliet, a Nicholas Sparks–like romance without the heartbreak. Ms. Seyfried stars as a young and hopeful journalist (is there any other kind?) on holiday in Verona, Italy, who uses her obsession with Romeo & Juliet to help an old grandmother (Vanessa Redgrave) find a long-lost love. There's an inattentive boyfriend and a grandson, too, and based on those descriptions, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out which guy winds up kissing Ms. Seyfried at the end. (Hint: Not the boyfriend.) Critics have been unkind—our Rex Reed calls Letters to Juliet "maddeningly predictable"—but considering Ms. Seyfried was able to turn Dear John into a box office success, does it matter?

Who should see it: Nicholas Sparks.

Just Wright

What's the story: What kind of movie is Just Wright? The kind where the Wright in the title refers to Queen Latifah's character, Leslie Wright, a physical therapist who helps an NBA player (Common) recover from a knee injury. Naturally, she becomes smitten, but since her best friend is busy going on Basketball Wives with him, there are some problems. NBA players Dwight Howard, Rajon Rondo and Dwayne Wade make appearances, so if you're a girl trying to talk your boyfriend into seeing this, drop their names and see if that works. But be forewarned: The reviews are gaseous.

Who should see it: Lebron James.

Also opening this weekend: The DIY drama Touching Home; Ken Loach's latest, Looking for Eric.

There's nothing wrong with a squishy, sentimental romantic confection now and then. But Letters to Juliet is a mere lollipop. It's gone before its 101-minute running time expires, and you're left with the stick.

A perky fact-checker and aspiring journalist named Sophie (the wide-eyed, look-at-her-she's-everywhere Amanda Seyfried) arrives in Verona, Italy, for a vacation with her fiancé, a self-involved chef named Victor (Gael García Bernal), to gawk at the vineyards, breathe the fresh air and bask in the beauty of Tuscany. They have such different interests that it seems like a hopeless match from the start. Victor is no Romeo, but Sophie is spellbound by the romantic notion of being in the same vicinity as Juliet's star-crossed romance. As Victor bounces around checking out the food and wine, Sophie's tourist map leads to the Capulet house and Juliet's balcony, where she finds, hidden in an old wall, a secret letter penned decades earlier by another young tourist, a troubled British girl named Claire, and addressed to Shakespeare's doomed, lovesick adolescent. Impishly, she answers the letter in Juliet's own voice, urging the long-lost Claire to sally forth regardless of her age, and find the boy she loved and lost that sunny Italian summer years ago. As ridiculous as this all sounds, it gets sillier.

Fifty years after writing the letter, Claire turns up as an elderly widow in the guise of (would you believe?) the great Vanessa Redgrave. (Yes, it's possible to go slumming, even in Verona.) She has dragged along her rude and thoroughly obnoxious grandson, Charlie (Australia's Christopher Egan), who doesn't much care for rhyming moon, June, and spoon. Naturally, he changes. While everyone searches for love, Victor searches for mushrooms, and the rest of us are treated to a guided tour of gorgeous Tuscany that looks composed out of outtakes from Under the Tuscan Sun. It's all maddeningly predictable enough to keep you checking your watch, and despite the actors' camera-stealing close-ups, it is a colossal waste of all of the talent involved. The enchanting Ms. Seyfried, who is showing up all over the place these days on worldwide screens both large and small, is much worse in the dreadful Mama Mia!, but much better as Julianne Moore's lover in Chloe and Bill Paxton's daughter in the HBO series Big Love. It's rather gloomy to see Ms. Redgrave lower her standards. By the time the old people find each other in time to prove love never dies, you may find the happy ending too preposterous to stifle a guffaw. More shocking is the fact that the usual charms of Mexican heartthrob Gael García Bernal at last appear utterly resistible. The bland direction by Gary Winick (who fared better in 2002 with the fresh, Holden Caulfield-styled New York coming-of-age story Tadpole) and the sappy dialogue by Jose Rivera and Tim Sullivan never once threaten to upstage Italy. Nothing can take the place of the terrace farming or the monastery vespers at sundown that personify Tuscany, so Letters to Juliet comes off as just another movie that makes you long for a trip to Northern Italy-but not with any of these people.

rreed@observer.com

Running time: 101 minutes
Written by: Jose Rivera and Tim Sullivan
Directed by: Gary Winick
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Gael García Bernal, Vanessa Redgrave, Christopher Egan

2 Eyeballs out of 4

Amanda Seyfried replies:

Well, it’s hard because they pay a lot of money. Sometimes, when you want to buy an apartment in Manhattan, you gotta do one or two. But in most cases you don’t need to be doing them—there are enough action flicks to keep you busy… no I’m kidding. Romantic comedies are great, though, if they’re done well. I love watching them; I just don’t necessarily love the process of making one.... It’s making movies for a different reason: for money. And that’s all great. We all want money. I mean, I love my apartment in New York.

Nora Ephron would probably be down with this reasoning.

1. Dear John: $32.4 million ($32.4 million total)

The Super Bowl wasn't the only place to find an upset over the weekend. Chalk up the surprise success of Dear John to counterprogramming and the power of Twilight fans. While the boys were busy preparing for the big game (and not buying tickets for the red meat action provided by From Paris With Love), the girls rushed to theaters to see Channing Tatum romance Amanda Seyfried and shed some tears; a ridiculous 84 percent of Dear John's audience was female and 64 percent were under 21. Those percentages allowed the Nicholas Sparks adaptation posting the biggest Super Bowl weekend ever, topping the $31.1 million Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds grossed in 2008. Of course if all those girls knew they could get the same pang in their heart from the adorable Google commercial that aired during the Super Bowl, we have a feeling the results might have been a tad different.

2. Avatar: $23.6 million ($630 million total)

And so the reign of Avatar as the number one move in America has ended. Before you shed a tear though, remember that over the last eight weeks Avatar shattered the all-time domestic and international grosses held by Titanic and scored nine Oscar nominations. Heck, it even broke another record this weekend. Despite not finishing first, Avatar still scored the biggest eighth weekend ever, besting—you guessed it—Titanic. And in case you were wondering: it was Lost in Space that ended the historic 15-week run of Titanic back in April of 1999.

3. From Paris With Love: $8.1 million ($8.1 million total)

Disaster said what? Not only did From Paris With Love give John Travolta his worst opening since Lucky Numbers in 2000 (we don't remember it either), but it also grossed less than Battlefield Earth. Altogether now: bombs away!

4. Edge of Darkness: $7 million ($29 million total)

And speaking of bombs... those holding out hope that the word of mouth for Edge of Darkness would salvage its soft start can stop now. Down 59 percent, the Mel Gibson revenge flick was certainly not the image rehabilitating hit the former star needed. Also not image rehabilitating? Mr. Gibson calling a reporter an "asshole."

5. The Tooth Fairy: $6.5 million ($34.3 million total)

So this is happening, huh? For the second straight week, The Tooth Fairy showed remarkably solid legs and now looks poised to be a money maker for 20th Century Fox. Down an Avatar-like 35 percent, the Dwayne Johnson kiddie flick proved unquestionably that kids will indeed watch anything.

From Paris With Love

What's the story: Fun fact: While you may have thought last weekend's Edge of Darkness was the follow-up film from Taken director Pierre Morel, it wasn't! Instead the Luc Besson protégé returns this weekend with From Paris With Love. If it feels like this movie was produced back at a time when co-star Jonathan Rhys Meyers was on the cusp of acting greatness, that's probably because it was: The first trailer for From Paris With Love appeared online back in December of 2008, when memories of Match Point were still fresh. Oh well. Regardless, action junkies should line up for the mix of explosions, violence, car chases and a completely absurd-looking John Travolta, who goes all Broken Arrow in his role as a rogue C.I.A. agent. The reviews for From Paris With Love have been arsenic, though, so more refined palettes might want to stay home.

Who should see it: Nicolas Sarkozy.

Dear John

What's the story: Nope, not a big screen adaptation of the Judd Hirsch sit-com. This Dear John is actually an adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel of the same name. Channing Tatum (channeling his inner Josh Hartnett) stars as John, a soldier who falls in love with a small town girl (the always-on-the-cusp Amanda Seyfried) while on leave from the Army. Needless to say, letters are written and love is gained, lost, gained and ... well, like we said, it's an adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel. You know what to expect. Here's a hint: lots of tears.

Who should see it: Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling. (There's still hope for them!)

Also opening: The best movie of the weekend? Try Frozen. The Open Water–meets–Okemo Mountain horror flick about three skiers trapped overnight on a chairlift has gotten rave reviews (Rex Reed called Frozen a "must-see"). Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the slopes ...